Absolute Bullshit

Oops! They killed me (well almost!). Not exactly part of the plan, but a possibility that had to be entertained and mined. And this is the big one: an accusation from beyond the grave that the directors of the Absolute group companies murdered one of their members to protect their reputation. How will they bribe and intimidate their way out of this?

Well they won’t. The writing is on the wall. Absolute’s latest business model has mananged to sink further into the sewer from hard selling nothing to a virtual pyramid scheme.

Absolute’s fractional ownership with guaranteed return over three years is a Ponzi Scheme for the following reasons:

1. Income stream is almost exclusively from selling fractional ownership, not renting rooms. The rooms are given free/at cost to prospective clients. The Agoda rates are not competitive with nearby hotels.
2. When all units are sold, rental income will be approximately 25% of current guarantees, immediately causing Absolute losses (unless they use the property to get sales for new ones – making the pyramid even bigger).
3. At the end of the guarantee period (or sooner if the word gets out) the value of the properties will fall 75%.

Who made these phone calls? (And maybe killed me?)

Dear FCO Mumbai

Thank you for providing the contact details of lawyers in Mumbai. As you can see from the attached letter, one of them drafted an FIR for me (kindly note their change in address). Following your advice to not go directly to the police for fear of being intimidated, the plan was for the statement to be sent by registered post once out of the country. Unfortunately, by the time the draft was complete, it was too late to book a flight for that night on line or over the telephone and it seemed unnecessarily stressful to go to the airport and risk there not being any availability.

 

Very few people know about my continued presence in Mumbai: the lawyers, Standard clothes shop in Santa Cruz, Air India and my current hotel. Others who know that my departure did not take place on time are the staff of the Sea Princess Hotel, the police at Santa Cruz/Juhu station and yourselves.

 

Imagine my surprise, therefore, to have just received two phone calls to my Indian cell phone as shown in the attached photograph. A single male voice delivered a non-stop stream of expletives such as “fuck you, go to hell, fucking bitch, fuck yourself, fuck your mother”. This call has put me once more in fear of my safety and so this email is sent to you and copied to the lawyers AS A MEASURE OF PRECAUTION. 

 

Please call me (+91 8879042505) to acknowledge receipt of this email and accept my plea that you extend to me the full protection of Her Majesty’s Government. Obviously it is sensible for me to book on the earliest available flight and to avoid Air India. This will be done. Please request the appropriate agencies to seek the source of the phone calls and inform me so that retaliatory action (such as informing the public via facebook.com/WeLuvMu) targets the actual culprits rather than all the suspects. If you do not call by midday, this email will be automatically published on-line for my own protection.

 

Your kind understanding is deeply appreciated.

 

Dr Richard Luke Munisamy

On Saturday, May 4, 2013, priyam wrote:

Hi Richard,

 

Copy of the FIR attached for your reference.

 

 

 

Regards,

Ms. Priyam.S.Dhamankar

Oasis Counsel & Advisory Pvt. Ltd. 
Udyog Bhavan, 1st floor,

29, Walchand Hirachand Marg,

Ballard Estate,

Mumbai – 400038

Board Line: (91 22) 6129 4600/4646 

Fax:              (91 22) 6129 4647

Direct:         (91 22) 6129 4623

 

 

 

Is there any Justice in this World?

**** OPEN LETTER ****

Dear Secretary-General

Please refer the following to the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group:

We are deeply concerned that the State of Mauritius has fallen into systemic violation of the Harare Declaration. Please take note of the email below (copied to the Chief Justice) to which We have still received no reply.

We apologise for the jocular language – it is an expression of Our utter frustration. The precursor to the application refered to therein can be found here.

The application was rejected by the Judge in Chambers on the basis of vice de procedure. (Click here to view what happened). We attempted to appeal to the Privy Council, but it has no Jurisdiciton in Chambers cases. We are unable to submit the main case because We cannot find an attorney to represent Us pro bono (We are a registered charitable institution funded entirely by donations). We are unable to apply in Person because of a change to the Supreme Court rules following a previous test of the judicio- political oligarchy.

Naturally, this email will appear on Our blog along with Your responses (or lack of them).

Regards

Dr Richard L Munisamy

The Next Generation

“Education, education, education” has long been a mantra of Reef Conservation Mauritius so how are they getting the message across to the current generation of students? To find out, we paid a visit to “Nauticaz”, a facility provided by Attitude Resorts at Marina Hotel, Anse la Raie and operated by Reef. It comprises a small class room which doubles as a laboratory, a library and a beautiful marine aquarium.

We were introduced to one of the instructors who exemplifies the old adage that “the best way to learn is to teach”. Olivier Eyries is a French university student on a short internship in Mauritius organised by AISEC who wanted to find out more about the environment. His task was to take students from Hampstead Junior School, Pamplemousses on an informative tour of the surroundings.

MTPA Outsourcing

We were somewhat surprised to discover that Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) has become a two-way street for Mauritius. Not only are European call centre jobs coming to our shores but the work of the Mauritian Tourism Promotion Authority (MTPA) is being outsourced to the UK – more precisely to the hopeful candidates of the Miss England beauty contest. The MTPA has taken our idea of offering a free holiday to pageant winners one step further by requiring them to promote Mauritius as part of the competition. Brilliant!

In fact we were contacted by one of the contestants, who asked us to write a short note in this blog. Eisha is half Indian-half Irish and represents the county of Norfolk. She is familiar with the local Mauritian community through her parents who both work in psychiatric care (hmmm…). She has been fundraising for charity at the same time as introducing people to Mauritian cuisine by selling massepain cakes door-to-door and cooking curry for her workmates.

Who gets to decide which candidate has brought the most publicity to Mauritius? MTPA Director Dr Karl Mootoosamy. It seems that he is unwilling to outsource that task. Anyway good luck Eisha!

Why so much arrogance in our Society?

By Tejcoomar Luchmun.

“You say that your hope is in God, and he will, I am sure, stand by you. But you must not forget that you have been given worldly means to use and employ against human arrogance and wrong; it is necessary to see such things with a broad mind in order to oppose them.” Knute Nelson

Of the many bad habits humans are known for having, arrogance should rank among the worst. It may only seem impolite behaviour and therefore relatively harmless, but underneath can lie trouble…

The MID Vision

Last year’s  public consultation exercise on the vision for Maurice Ile Durable has finally yielded its long overdue green paper. This is important because the government will use it to formulate a Common Shared Vision for MID and subsequent policy. The green paper proposes two visions and the Ministry of Environment has invited feedback on them by 8th May. What are your views and opinions?

Flavour of the month

Within the business world there have been a number of management fads such as:

• MBO (Management By Objectives)
• OMM (One-Minute Management)
• MBWA (Management By Walking About)
• TQM (Total Quality Management)
• BPR (Business Process Re-engineering)
• TBM (Team-Based Management)

With such a wide variety it is becoming very hard for business gurus and management consultants to come up with (and sell) new ones. Perhaps they should look to Mauritius where the Government has stumbled upon a novel one: MBFM (Management By Flavour of the Month). Consider the following policies that have been recently paraded:

• Mauritius – Cyber Island
• Mauritius – Sustainable Island
• Mauritius – Two Million Tourists
• Mauritius – Gateway to Africa
• Mauritius – Duty-Free Shopping Paradise
• Mauritius – Island City State

Miss Ile Durable – Miss Earth (Mauritius)

We are delighted to announce that Anne-Lise Ramooloo has been selected to represent Mauritius at the highly respected Miss Earth contest. Miss Earth 2010 will be held in Vietnam during November with the final ceremony broadcast live around the world on December 4th. During the programme, Anne-Lise will tour Vietnam, receive lectures on sustainable development, undertake site visits and participate in actual projects. It will be a unique and life-changing experience that she will share with the representatives of some 90 other countries.

On her return, Anne-Lise will help We Love Mauritius, in partnership with the private sector and other NGOs – especially those involved with children, to advance the Government’s objective of a sustainable island. She will be the face of Maurice Ile Durable and the Voice of Youth and Mother Nature.

Anne-Lise, 21 from Port Louis, has become one of Mauritius’ leading models since finishing Loreto College, Quatre Bornes in 2007. She was the Face of the Month in October 2008 and a finalist for Elite Model Look in 2010. She has worked with many local and international designers and photographers, appeared in print and TV adverts, fashion shows and a Bollywood film. In June 2010, she featured on the front cover of the special environmental edition of Essentielle magazine, the first to be printed on recycled paper.

We were very pleased with the number and quality of the applicants who wished to represent our country. Candidates were interviewed on the basis of their CVs and we selected the best of each of three categories: professional models, recent graduates and the general public. Their details were sent to the organisers of Miss Earth who made the final decision. In 2011, we plan to empower the youth of Mauritius to choose who they want to represent them. We are also negotiating with the organisers to host a future Miss Earth contest in Mauritius, perhaps as soon as 2012.

Miss Earth (Mauritius) 2010

We are busy conducting interviews for our amazing 12 month action learning programme in Public Relations and Social and Environmental Advocacy. The best candidate will receive training, an all expenses paid trip to Vietnam, a salary and medical insurance – are we generous or what? The closing date is 31st August 2010, so there is still time to apply. Send your cv to info@missmu.org or missmu.org@gmail.com. Visit missmu.org for more details or check out the press clippings below (no comments on the smile please )